Letter From Russia Reaches Czech Address After 28 Years

A letter sent to a Prague resident from Sochi, Russia, on March 7, 1989, reached the address after 28 years this spring, 22 years after the addressee’s death.

Earlier this year, it was received by Ivan Hanus, 64, whose late mother was the addressee.

The distance between Prague and Sochi is 2,599 kilometers. The letter spent 28 years and 19 days, or 10,246 days on its way to Prague. The case has been entered in the Czech Book of Records as a letter with the record-long period of delivery.

Many years ago, Hanus’s parents met a female doctor in the Sochi spa and they became friends. On return from Russia, they regularly exchanged letters with their friend and visited each other.

The letter that reached Prague this spring was the Russian woman’s letter of congratulations on the International Women’s Day.